Individual Character's full name: Zselyke Lányi
Name Pronunciation: [ˈʒɛjkɛ], Zhey-Keh
Alias/ Nickname/ Code name: Senator Lányi, Dr. Lányi, Zhey, Zee
Gender: Female
Age: 38
Date of Birth: 4/5/1982
Birthplace/ Home/ Place of origin: Budapest, Hungary
Nationality: Hungarian-American (Dual Citizen)
Ethnicity/ Cultural Heritage: 75% Hungarian, 25% Western European Odds & Ends
AppearanceHair color and style: Brown with subtle highlights that brighten when her powers are in use
Skin Tone: Fair
Eye Color: Hazel
Height: 5’7”
Build: Keeps as fit as she can while maintaining a relatively sedentary day job. Busty with an hourglass figure and layer of muscle beneath a small layer of fat
Visible mutation: Deeper, more vibrant colors when breath is stored
Scars/ Tattoos/ Piercings: One tiny rainbow-colored sparrow tattoo hidden on the back of her thigh from a youthful indiscretion
Other features: Zselyke uses reading glasses when she’s going over documents with plenty to read
Everyday clothing style: Always aware of her presence in the public eye, Zselyke fashionably when out and about casually, with finer and more formal clothing to suit whatever event is on her agenda.
Uniform: As a senator, Zselyke wears suits, button-downs, and business-appropriate dresses.
Sleepwear: Negligees, silk nightgowns, nothing
Miscellaneous clothing: Her collection of heels, hats, and accessories is substantial.
CharacterPersonality: Zselyke stands by idealist beliefs with pragmatic processes. She has agendas she wants to forward, but she recognizes that ethics in politics do not necessarily get the job done. She’s willing to make deals, stroke egos, grease palms, and make veiled threats if it benefits her cause or her career. Her opinions are strong and she expresses them eloquently, but she is willing to sacrifice virtue for the sake of virtuous change.
As an extrovert with a college minor in Psychology and a more personal study in the student body, Zselyke is charming and personable, not just to individuals, but to a crowd. She speaks naturally, rarely letting nerves get to her, and her passion and willingness to speak boldly have been called “refreshing” by pundits.
When Zselyke makes decisions, if she seems reckless or brash, she has likely done research or holds cards she is not showing. She did not get to where she was by putting herself in compromising positions carelessly.
Hobbies/ Interests: Broadway, Tennis, Boxing, Gardening, MOBA Games
Job or part time job and description: United States Democratic Senator of New York
Fears/ phobias/ concerns: A filibuster-proof majority, the other party, her own party, the big scandal that will end her career
Special talents: High Platinum in Haunted Hallows, Lovely singing voice, Halfway decent shot
MoralityGood/ bad/ neutral/ other: Neutral Good. She puts on a lawful good face, but she is more than willing to bend rules to accomplish what she believes is a good and just resolution.
MutationsMutation description: Biochromatic Breath: Zselyke can breath in the colors from things around her, storing them in herself. When she breathes normally, this happens to a minor degree with the objects directly around her going a shade less vibrant over an extended time. When she intentionally activates her power by inhaling deeply, she can drain much of the color of an object she was focused on or borrow enough color from her immediate area to dim the space noticeably.
When holding borrowed biochromatic breath, Zselyke’s own appearance, including thing worn immediately on her person, becomes more vivid, with deeper, richer colors. The more she holds, the more vibrant she becomes, and if she holds too much breath, she can get unnaturally vibrant and potentially hard to look at.
Chromatic Illusions: By expending her biochromatic breath, Zselyke can create visual illusions visible to the naked eye and on cameras. Illusions can either be made to appear like their own objects or draped over an existing object or person.
Strengths: Vibrant, full colors are visually appealing, giving Zselyke an appearance that is often said to “glow.” While she gives off no light, it does enhance her appearance and helps her photograph well. Ironically, if she subtly drains some color from a person, she can even leave an opponent looking more drab than usual.
Illusions are incredibly useful for obscuring the obvious when something needs to be hidden, touching up an appearance, or hiding a face. Altering someone’s perception of reality can help you dictate reality. Her illusions are not just tricks on someone’s illusion; they are a visual presence akin to a high-end hologram and solid in appearance.
Weaknesses and Limitations:Objects only hold a little biochromatic breath, so she needs to borrow from several for a sizeable illusion. Plants hold more than objects, animals hold more than plants, and people hold the most, though it takes the most effort to draw color from people. To make a person monochromatic, she would have to be breathing them in for minutes.
Colors do return after they are stolen, taking longer for objects than plants, and so on. A human’s color would start returning slowly in minutes. (A hypothetical monochromatic person would need a full two hours to return to normal color.)
It can also be difficult to take in a lot of breath discretely from a single object or area. The sudden shift in colors can be noticeable to onlookers.
Over time, held breath will start to slowly escape, as though it was leaking away, but this is usually balanced by her passive intake of biochromatic breath. She does have to be conscious to draw this special breath in, though, so when she sleeps, she’ll generally lose about half of a “vibrant Zselyke’s” worth of breath.
Illusions are not permanent fixtures and have an expiration time when they are created. When Zselyke breathes an illusion to life, she gives it all the breath it is going to have for its duration. The duration of an illusion depends based on how much is being created and how much breath it was given. Additionally, illusions draped over something pre-existing require the least breath. An illusion to give Zselyke rainbow eyes or change her hairstyle could be kept for hours on a single breath. An illusionary basketball could last half an hour on that same breath. An illusionary car would require multiple breaths to even last ten minutes due to its size.
Chromatic illusions are only visual and do not generate heat, sound, scent, or mass. If someone wants to knowingly interact with an illusion, it will respond appropriately. Zselyke’s date could twirl an illusionary lock of curled hair if they knew it was false, even if they would not feel it. It can also not respond in a physically impossible way, so someone could punch an illusionary car and it would try to replicate the dent in the door, but if they try entering the car, they will pass through the floor that does not have mass to hold them.
Someone unwilling or unknowing would pass through any illusion they interact with. Passing through an illusion does not make it flicker or break; it would simply look as though they were phasing into the object, and if they were looking inside it, they would just see the color it is made up from.
Physical AbilitiesGeneral Physical Capabilities: Zselyke’s Strength, Speed, and Reflexes, Stamina, and Flexibility are all standard for a woman of her age who engages in regular exercise.
Fighting Style: Zselyke has taken self-defense courses over the years, often even chairing initiatives to fund them and make them more accessible on college campuses. She could fend off your garden-variety mugger, but she also keeps mace (in D.C.) and a handgun (in New York) on hand to be ready if she is ever seriously threatened.
Fighting Style Pros/Cons: Her fighting style is defensive and reactionary, and she is not going to fire a firearm unless she has to. (Mace, she might be more ready to fire at will.) She might have a chance against a mugger, but someone trained in combat would have no trouble with her.
History Of Your CharacterGrowing up in Budapest, Zselyke was a personable student, making friends and talking her way into and out of trouble well into her adolescence. Peers liked her, teachers liked her, but the latter saw her as a young woman with potential she was not taking advantage of academically. Still, she was popular, she was a competent student, and she climbed student government with a combination of charisma and appealing ideas.
Zselyke’s period of growth and exploration was taking place while she grew up in a conservative household, leading to her risk taking going on behind her parents’ backs. It was during a “study session” with a boyfriend that her powers first manifested. The makeout session was interrupted by her father entering the room. Panicked and pulling away, she was surprised when he seemed nonplussed by what he walked in on. When she looked in the mirror, she saw her cheeks a normal color and her hair not mussed up by the young man’s fingers.
And then the illusion faded and she saw the flushed cheeks she was expecting, as well as a young man whose colors were notably… dimmer. It took time for her to understand her mutation, but when she did, she experimented with it, learning not only to use it to her benefit, but to keep it her little secret.
During her senior year of high school, on a vacation with family, Zselyke met an American girl, her first gay crush, and got immediately smitten. After the vacation, they traded letters and used burgeoning internet messenger technology to carry a long distance relationship. In an impulsive decision and despite her parents’ protests, Zselyke applied for a college in America.
Shortly into her freshman year, Zselyke learned why you did not make major life choices to chase a teenage romance. Her girlfriend cheated on her, and a frustrated undeclared student buried herself in schoolwork, classmates, and current events. Some socially and politically active professors saw her passion and leadership abilities and steered her into Political Science. Current events like wars, gay rights movements, mutant rights debates, and economic crises shaped the political stances of a young woman who would go on to claim her Doctorate in Political Science.
Over the years, Zselyke established herself at first in New York politics on committees, then the New York House of Representatives and New York Senate before being elected to the US House of Representatives and finally, in 2016, claiming a US Senate seat as the Junior Senator for New York.
RoleplayWhat’s your OOC alias?: Aly
Where did you learn about this site?: I blame Jorge. He didn’t tell me about it, I just blame him.
Do you have any other characters on MRO, if so who: Rebecca Grey-Morris Stephanie Graves Vanessa Berry Chrysanthemum Van Hart Sabine Sang Eupraxia Ezmeralda DiazSample RP:“Are you still listening to that video?”
Zselyke popped an earbud out and looked up at her assistant, who evidently walked into the office as she was listening to the rantings of some popular political ViewTuber. The man was a known hack and sensationalist, but those were the people who gained audiences.
The Senator smirked, pausing the video.
”I’m playing it on one-and-a-quarter speed, but God, does the man talk.”Her assistant rolled her eyes, dropping Zselyke’s lunch order on the table. “He’s a waste of time.”
”Oh, he is,” she agreed, unwrapping her gyro.
”But I like listening so I can expect talking points from Wolf News and the other side of the aisle. I swear, they’re a bunch of parrots. Grew up in a socialist country, immigrant, no family values.”“Have you gotten to the part where you’re a Russian Asset yet?”
Zselyke sighed.
”No, but I was waiting for it. Honestly, I’d be glad if they could just hang themselves upon the controversial bisexual angle.” At least that one, she generally only got from the right.
Her chipper assistant shrugged, moving toward the door. “Maybe push that envelope again? Some public dates, or maybe dye your hair pink?”
”Oh, I like that,” she said through laughter, before diving into her gyro as her assistant dismissed herself, reminding Zselyke of her call at one-thirty. As she carefully wiped away tzatziki sauce from the corner of her lip, she looked at her desk mirror, inspecting her hair.
Could she pull off pink hair? She did thrive off her reputation as a progressive, at times unapologetic personality. Letting out a soft breath, the waves of her hair were coated in a temporary pastel pink, only meant to last a few seconds so her assistant did not walk in on her experimentation. Pastel pink might be hard for her to pull off, she decided. A date, then. She would look through her contacts list and bring someone out to the theatre for a night. Maybe even a night on the town to drum up a headline. She would run it by her advisor, weighing how far was too far; sometimes it was good to have people to remind her where the lines were.
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